Poll result is 11 YES, 2 NO. Resolves to 11/13 = 85%

I think the case for YES is pretty strong. Anyone want to offer arguments for NO?

I'm particularly interested in why there's a big gap between this one and /jack/how-acceptable-is-it-to-transfer-so . What difference do people see? (Or perhaps is it an artifact of polling error, i.e. different people voting in the polls?)

Anyone want to describe why they think it's good or bad?

@jack It's good because it makes my Manifold shares more valuable.

@jack “Good” has a little too much moral connotation for me; I’ll explain why I think it’s “acceptable.”

In short, the space of actions people can take to influence their own portfolio value includes buying mana, and so should be factored into any suppositions about what could happen to portfolio values in the future.

It’s entirely possible there could be a market made that directly or indirectly hangs on a trader’s portfolio value as a deciding factor, with that trader being completely oblivious to that fact. In such a case, I think it’s extremely difficult to argue that that trader buying mana would somehow be “unacceptable” in those circumstances, and yet the participants in the market would do best to factor in that possibility. Awareness of the market only makes the possibility more or leas likely given the market’s resolution criteria - it doesn’t change anything about acceptability of the act on its own.

Now, if the market were made with some kind of written or verbal commitment that the trader in question would expressly not purchase mana during the market window, then I think there’s an argument against acceptable behavior there.

@MattCWilson Calling myself out also that I presently have this market open 😄 So take my opinions with the appropriate amount of salt.

@MattCWilson I agree, broadly. Some markets are designed to help us be better aligned with outside events, and lots of people see that as the function of all markets. However, some markets (most commonly, 'whalebait') in fact help us become better aligned with our expectations of market manipulation. This is very useful, even if it was not the original intent of the site. Even if you are of the opinion that such markets should not, ideally, exist, the fact that they do exist gives us reason to want to explore that space. We need to be well-calibrated on what sorts of markets will become walebait. The fact that people will spend real money to become the whale in a market is part of the the equation under question. When in doubt if they will consider this cheating, you have to ask, not assume.

@Duncan 💯

I also suspect that markets like these will be noticeably less common in prediction market systems that trade in significant sums of real-world currency.

@MattCWilson One would hope.

Yeah, I largely agree, and YES is my own position as well. However, I think there are some plausible counterarguments for NO.

Awareness of the market only makes the possibility more or leas likely given the market’s resolution criteria - it doesn’t change anything about acceptability of the act on its own.

I think intent does matter. There are acts that are generally considered fine on their own, but problematic when done for profit. An example is my other question /jack/how-acceptable-is-it-to-make-10-alt - creating 10 alt accounts is entirely acceptable if done for legit reasons (e.g. running helpful bots like FairlyRandom and ArbBot). But it's unacceptable if done for reasons like manipulating the DAU metric for profit.

That said, I still think buying mana is clearly acceptable even when done for a profit motive on a specific market - after all, isn't that the almost the same as the main reason people buy mana (to profit on markets in general)?

Another way to manipulate your portfolio value is to find a guaranteed 100% market with a lot of volume and buy some NO. You'll immediately book a 1000x return on your profit graph...

@Mira Yeah, there are a ton of ways to manipulate it. I chose this one as a more obvious one.

I wonder: how acceptable would it be to make one of these poll-based markets, get all your friends or alts to vote YES so that lots of people buy YES shares, then buy NO shares and all switch your votes to change the outcome at the last moment? (That would be my concern with polls that let you change your vote.)

@EMcNeill See my rules. It would be unacceptable because I said so explicitly. In general polls without such explicit rules, I think it would still be unacceptable, unless the poll was intended in a more fun/less serious way where gaming/memeing the poll was part of the fun.

Also, I don't think switching votes is an important part of the risk. Just flooding the market with dishonest votes would be a simpler way to manipulate the result for a profit.

@jack Fair points!

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